It has been publicly disseminated for decades that an employment by Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) would automatically grant a training session somewhere in the world, most probably the US. But now Saudia is trying to keep them home. Earlier this week, Saudia kicked off its new training and development center in Jeddah to boost its home training powers and to help create more Saudi manpower in the air travel industry. Eng. Khalid Abdullah Almulhem, director general of Saudi Airlines, visited the new 7500 sqm center to check on its operations. Featuring 30 classrooms, 24 language labs, 8 workshop areas, self-educating areas, computer commons, the center accommodates up to 642 trainees at a time The center comes as a strategic step to provide home-grown training programs for the national carrier that has for a long time sent its employees overseas for training, especially in the US. “Saudi Airlines is giving its ‘extreme' priority to prepare young Saudis at home for the air travel industry.” “They are key element to the new start of the Saudi Airlines to cope with current challenges of the aviation industry,” he added. The new strategic plan of developing the mechanisms of Saudia for a more convenient air trip would include working on different fronts: more training programs, updating the fleet and technology and structure of the establishment, he added. A detailed presentation during a Saudia executive meeting showed the new strategy of Saudia training, including the future pioneers program, finance program for executives, the pilot crew training, the automatic system skills development, the English language center, customer service training, and other training programs. __
